Forum:2009-05-11 (Monday)
Discussion for comic for . Ha. Not Von Pinn not Othar but Merlot. What do you want to bet they are cheese rounds? And where did he get that conveyance? Rej Maddog 04:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC) : NOT who I was expecting. But I imagine the Fun-Sized whatever-it-is will sort him in short order. Nekokami 04:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC) ::'' 'Merlot go down the hole......' '' -- Donovan Ravenhull 07:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC) ::: Of course, now that I'm done making cartoon jokes, this might have another affect. Pinky may be about to escape, possibly with other prisoners who prefer her style. -- Donovan Ravenhull 07:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :::: 'Prefer her style'?! What, shooting them dead randomly? Yeah, that'll ensure lots of followers *snicker*. -- Corgi 19:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC) : I second Rej´s question: where the HECK did he get this thing? Merlot is not a spark, he couldn´t have built it. And while we´re at it, where did he get the parts? I don´t think these guns are part of the standard supply shipments. -Sir Chaos 12:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :: It might be something that the 'conspiracy' built in secretcy for use in an emergency. Merlot would definately think this counts as one. -- Donovan Ravenhull 12:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :: Funny thing about science, you don't HAVE to be a genius to flip a light switch, like you HAVE to be a believer before religion will affect you. Merlot may not be a spark, but he is a scientist, trained by Dr. Beetle. It would take him longer to build less, but it's certainly not impossible for him to duplicate the work of a spark, given enough material and motivation. Tatter D ::: Beetle was a clank expert, after all, I agree. Even if you don't share a mentor's specialty at all points, you still pick things up. (Although your other statement needs a caveat - Tarvek is the first to come anywhere near Van Rijn's clankwork in 200 years, and that's with the Spark.) -- Corgi 14:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :::: Non-sparks can only work from plans provided for them by sparks. Merlot and Glassvitch needed the Baron´s plans to build the Dihoxulator, and apparently they had little idea what they were doing. Agatha, as a completely untrained new spark, realized something was wrong, but they didn´t - they apparently thought they had made a mistake somewhere when putting it together. -Sir Chaos 17:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC) ::::: No, non-Sparks can do lots of things without plans from Sparks, but they're unlikely to be able to turn chalk into cheese as a result. They will, however, make some very fine educational and artistic writing materials. Adam Clay isn't a Spark, and he did some excellent tractor repairs; probably rebuilt engines from scratch, too. :::: I didn´t mean to imply non-sparks can do nothing. As you say, Adam Clay is an excellent mechanic, and so are quite a few other people, Moloch von Zinzer for example. However, non-sparks cannot come up with sparky innovations on their own. My guess is they could probably come up with anything that existed in reality up to somewhere in the first half of the 20th century - for anything else, especially stuff that doesn´t exist in reality, they need detailed instructions or plans made by a spark. So, what non-sparks can do still leaves plenty of room for scientific endeavors by them - they just cannot duplicate the spark and its results. -Sir Chaos 22:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC) ::::: If the functioning of technology depended solely on Spark-written blueprints, the functioning of society would have ground to a standstill as the madder types would blackmail with blueprints, instead of giant carnivorous pea plants. The Dihoxulator was a Sparky creation in the first place - they weren't supposed to be able to understand it, as it used principles beyond their grasp or abilities. ::::: Agatha felt something was wrong, there was no real logic or science involved in her reaction at that point. -- Corgi 19:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :::::: More evidence for my supposition of The Spark actually being an enormous ætheric database of all human knowledge, so advanced that its users don't even have to know it exists to instinctively draw upon any knowledge they want, the only limits being their imagination and the inherent frailities of their human bodies. The Dihoxulator was DESIGNED to be unworkable, as a test for Gil (and a means to get Beetle to hand over the hive engine). Neither Glassvitch nor Merlot could have known how it worked, because it never would work. Only a spark would have the slightest clue that it wouldn't work, and it would be nothing but a suspicion until the spark went through the entire database not looking for how it worked, but rather for proof it wouldn't work. --Tatter D 19:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC) :: Of course, the huge trilobite on the front may mean that this was a repair, not a new build. Considering the Heterodyne family history, the thing might have been sitting in the linen closet. -- Donovan Ravenhull 14:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC) ::::My next question would be, "Where is that linen closet and what other useful things are in there?" --DryBrook 14:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC) ::: It may not even have needed much repair, just a bit of tweaking, which I think Merlot would be more than capable of. Remember, he surpassed the work of many lesser sparks before coming to TPU. As far as where it came from, the linen closet may not be far off. It has the look of a Heterodyne domestic chore device to me. Like a vacuum cleaner. Only for big huge dust bunnies with nasty teeth and laser beams coming out of their eyes. ;) Nekokami 02:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC) smoke sneaks in, corrects spelling mistakes, sneaks out. was never here. /smoke :::Yes, one doesn't have to be a class A mechanic to figure out the reason your car doesn't start is because it's out of gas.Dodger 01:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC) :::: This is of course just a wild guess of mine, but the machine doesn´t seem to be Heterodyne style. Bill and Barry seem to have preferred death rays, and the old Heterodynes were apparently adherents of the "slow, painful and personal" school of killing - neither seem the type for rotary cannons. And, so far, they prefer (semi-)autonomous clanks to piloted vehicles. The cannons look a lot like the Wulfenbach "Clenk Gon", too. I think whoever built this do so from parts smuggled into the Castle - who knows, the False Heterodyne Conspiracy may not have been the only ones to smuggle stuff into the Castle. -Sir Chaos 17:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC) ::::: You have, of course, every right to your wild guess, but I feel that you are overthinking this. It's just another weapon found inside a huge death-trap. -- Corgi 19:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC) ::::: I agree with Corgi. When a non-spark appears in a Heterodyne castle on a device with huge Heterodyne Trilobite-shaped badge on the front, the obvious first guess is Heterodyne equipment. The next guess would be equipment from the False Heterodyne Conspiracy, but it doesn't seem to match the style that Zola's minions have been using. Argadi 19:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC) :::::: It's not pink, for starters.